Gerbillinae

Gerbillinae is one of the subfamilies of the rodent family Muridae and includes the gerbils, jirds, and sand rats. Once known as desert rats, the subfamily includes about 110 species of African, Indian, and Asian rodents, including sand rats and jirds, all of which are adapted to arid habitats. Most are primarily active during the day, making them diurnal, and almost all are omnivorous.

Gerbillinae

Rebroad · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
gerbilPBDB
Sits inside
MuridaePBDB
Diet
herbivore, insectivorePBDB, for Muridae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Muridae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 15 million years on record.

The record covers at least 15.98 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 20.45 Mya to 0 Mya.

Miocene — about 20 of 143 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 27 of 143 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 84 of 143 occurrencesPleistocene21–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences10–9.8 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences9.8–9.1 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences9.1–8.4 Mya — about 2 occurrences8.4–7.7 Mya — about 4 occurrences7.7–7.0 Mya — about 3 occurrences7.0–6.3 Mya — about 3 occurrences6.3–5.6 Mya — about 3 occurrences5.6–4.9 Mya — about 5 occurrences4.9–4.2 Mya — about 6 occurrences4.2–3.5 Mya — about 6 occurrences3.5–2.8 Mya — about 8 occurrences2.8–2.1 Mya — about 16 occurrences2.1–1.4 Mya — about 19 occurrences1.4–698 ka Mya — about 20 occurrences698 ka–0 Mya — about 44 occurrences15.98 Mya11.7 ka20.9 Mya0 Mya

143 occurrences of Gerbillinae on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

143 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

21 formations

Shungura — 5.08°N, 36.03°EShungura — 5.01°N, 36.00°EVogel River Series — 3.22°S, 35.21°EVogel River Series — 3.01°S, 35.20°EVogel River Series — 3.13°S, 35.13°EOlduvai — 2.98°S, 34.32°EOlduvai — 2.99°S, 35.34°EKoobi Fora — 4.18°N, 36.42°EKoobi Fora — 3.59°N, 36.24°EHadar — 11.13°N, 40.57°EKanapoi — 2.37°N, 36.08°EKanapoi — 2.32°N, 36.07°ESwartkrans — 26.02°S, 27.72°EKromdraai — 26.00°S, 27.75°ELefkon — 41.18°N, 23.42°ELefkon — 41.17°N, 23.50°EPinjor — 30.70°N, 76.88°EMytilinii — 37.75°N, 26.89°EKomnina — 40.43°N, 21.80°ENachukui — 4.25°N, 35.79°ENubia — 16.25°N, 33.75°EC1/LR — 33.58°N, 7.65°WLatamne — 35.13°N, 36.75°EDam — 25.98°N, 49.39°EAdu-Asa — 10.32°N, 40.25°EKhurdkabul — 34.32°N, 69.42°ETuglu — 40.61°N, 33.63°EMarkygialos — 40.51°N, 22.50°E

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The named rock units Gerbillinae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 99 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Gerbillinae and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Gerbillinae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

1,274 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 106 sites for Gerbillinae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

79 references

Each of the 143 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 67 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Gerbillinae

Credit
Rebroad
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Gerbillinae was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itMuridae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gray 1825)